Corvinusring 16 (moved 2013, renewed 2018)
Alfred Wödl
Fruitless petition to Berlin
Born November 25, 1934, in Vienna, resident in Wiener Neustadt, admitted to the Gugging children’s sanatorium on April 1, 1939, transferred to the children’s specialist department “Am Spiegelgrund” on February 6, 1941, died of “pneumonia” on February 22, 1941.
Three weeks before Alfred’s birth, his mother suffered smoke inhalation, resulting in prolonged unconsciousness. On November 25, 1934, the illegitimate son Alfred was born in Vienna but was developmentally impaired. His mother, Anny, said: “It finally turned out that although he understood everything, he could not speak. Also, his legs were apparently too weak to carry him, so he was hardly able to walk. The doctors actually could not determine what he was suffering from or the cause.”
During polyarthritic disease (joint inflammation), the two-year-old Alfred was treated at the children’s clinic in Glanzing. It was determined that Alfred was “mentally retarded,” with weak musculature and unable to perform targeted movements.
On April 1, 1939, the child was admitted to the care and employment institution in Gugging. The Vienna Neustadt guardianship stipulated that the child could not be handed over to the mother without their approval. The evaluation: “… still unable to walk or stand, cannot perform any targeted movements with his hands, stays in bed permanently, must be fed, voids himself, is completely in need of care, is unresponsive, occasionally produces a few unintelligible sounds…”
His mother, herself a nurse at the General Hospital in Vienna, protested against the removal of patients from the Am Steinhof institution and reached Herbert Linden in the Reich Ministry of the Interior in Berlin to present the protests of Viennese relatives. Back in Vienna, she organized further protests with letters and telegrams, which arrived in Berlin “by the basketload.”
In January 1941, the mother visited her child in Gugging and learned from a nurse that Alfred was scheduled for transport in the next few days. The mother immediately went to Berlin a second time to personally plead for her child’s life with Linden – but to no avail. She only managed to get her disabled child transferred to the children’s specialist department “Am Spiegelgrund.”
On February 6, 1941, Alfred was transferred to the municipal youth welfare institution “Am Spiegelgrund” in Vienna, as his mother wished, and registered under admission number AZ 19/41. On February 15, 1041, Dr. Gross wrote in a report, “the child is a half-Jew!” On February 20, a routine admission examination was conducted by Dr. Hübsch, and on February 22, Alfred Wödl died early in the morning of “pneumonia.”
Anton Blaha
Photo: Alfred in the arms of his mother Anny Wödl (© DÖW)